This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Kostoff, R. N. Articles by Barth, R. B. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Brief Communication Adjacency and proximity searching in the Science Citation Index and Google

Office of Naval Research, Arlington, VA 22217, USA

John T. Rigsby

Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, Dahlgren, VA 22448, USA

Ryan B. Barth

DDL-OMNI Engineering, LLC, McLean, VA 22102, USA

We have developed simple algorithms that allow adjacency and proximity searching in Google and the Science Citation Index (SCI). The SCI algorithm exploits the fact that SCI stopwords in a search phrase function as a placeholder. Such a phrase serves effectively as a fixed adjacency condition determined by the numbern of adjacent stopwords (i.e. retrieve all records where word A and word B are separated byn words in at least one location). The algorithm integrates over search phrases with different numbers of adjacent stopwords to provide a flexible adjacency or proximity capability (i.e. retrieve all records where word A and word B are separated byn or fewer words in at least one location, wheren is the maximum separation desired between A and B in at least one location). The Google algorithm exploits the fact that asterisks (in Google) separating words in a phrase function like word wildcards. The difference between two such phrases (the first phrase containing one fewer asterisk than the second phrase) serves effectively as a fixed adjacency or proximity condition, with the number of separating words equal to the number of asterisks in the first phrase. The algorithm integrates over these phrase differentials to provide a flexible adjacency or proximity capability (i.e. retrieve all records where word A and word B are separated byn or fewer words in at least one location, wheren is the maximum separation desired between A and B in at least one location).

Key Words: information retrieval • adjacency searching • proximity searching • constrained cooccurrence searching • Science Citation Index • Google • Yahoo • Engineering Compendex • PubMed • OVID • search engine • query

Journal of Information Science, Vol. 32, No. 6, 581-587 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0165551506067126


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?